The call, for those of you who were locked in a closet all weekend, was in the final seconds of the first overtime period as Clint "C.C." Harrison, of N.C. State, launched an off balance jumpshot from the left wing, just inside the three point arc, which then banked off the backboard and through the net, sending the game into double overtime.
One problem: the referee got confused and decided that Harrison's basket was not worth a mere two points, but because it displayed just great effort on his part, it was now worth a miraculous three points. The referee, Mike Wood, picked Sunday to institute his own personal rule book. In this new rule book, when you shoot the ball from on or near the three point line, it is worth three points. The refs forgot to tell the teams and the crowd before the game of this new rule.
The decision to make Harrison's basket a three was, without a doubt, the most moronic call I have ever seen and ever hope to see. Everyone in the coliseum, even those students shafted by the ticket lottery sitting in the ceiling, saw Harrison's foot on the line; how could the referee standing 10 feet away miss it? This is not to take anything away from the effort put forth by the scrappy Wolfpack team, but they must realize that they did not win the game, they were given the victory by the referees. How can they expect to win games with players named C.C. and Ishua, and a coach named Herb?
The poor officiating in Sunday's game against N.C. State is not the first time that the officials have cost the Deacon basketball team a victory. For those with selective amnesia, allow me to recall the events that occurred Jan. 19, in the same Joel Coliseum, but this time against the Maryland Terrapins.
On this day, at the end of regulation, Maryland guard Laron Profit pulled up from behind the three-point line and drained a wide open shot to propel the Terps to victory. However, upon closer examination it is difficult to tell whether or not Profit released the shot prior to the buzzer sounding.
The timing of the shot was indeed very close, and it is difficult to discern the correct call without the aid of slow-motion instant replay. This, however, is not the point. The point is that the players did not decide the game, the officials decided the result of the game.
Last Tuesday evening in Charlottesville, Va., Duke played Virginia in yet another classic ACC battle with the outcome of the game hanging in the balance until the last few seconds. It was in these last few seconds that the ACC referees committed yet another colossal screw-up. With a mere five seconds left in the game a UVa. player, Nolan I believe, made two free throws to put the Cavaliers ahead. After he made the second free throw the scorekeeper sounded the horn to allow a substitution into the game. However, the referees handed the ball to a Duke player, who inbounded to Duke guard Steve "Wojo" Wojciechowski, who drove the length of the floor, got fouled while shooting, made both free throws, and put Duke ahead. The only glitch in this is that the clock never started until Wojo was underneath the UVa. basket. The refs had their little conference at half court and decided the basket was good and that three or so seconds should be taken off the clock. Final result: Duke wins the game and there is nothing Virginia can do about it.
The point of demonstrating all of these ACC referee miscues is to establish the fact that now with the close of the season each conference game becomes more and more important, and as more and more referees make mistakes their supervisors instruct them to call everything real close and strictly by the rule book. The result of this occurrence is that now every official's whistle has a hair trigger and is ready to signal a touch foul at any second.
What was once considered good, tough defense is now considered a hand check and is a personal foul. Any contact in the lane can now be whistled as a foul. The complexion of games in this conference will now undoubtedly change dramatically during these last few weeks of the season leading up to the ACC Tournament as referees reinvent the rules.
The ACC Tournament is the climax of the entire conference schedule and is by far the most intense four days of basketball of each and every season. In the ACC Tournament, teams must give all that they have in order to advance to the championship game, and anything less sends you home. It would be a travesty to get knocked out of the ACC Tournament and the chance for an automatic berth in the NCAA Tournament because of a referee's mistake. It is the duty of every ACC official to insure that each game is called accurately and fairly, because without the aid of instant replay it is the official's call, and that call alone, that stands as the final judgment.
Officials are only human and cannot be expected to catch everything that occurs in such a fast paced game, but basic operations such as clock management and watching the lines (either three point line, base line, time line) should not be dealt with so carelessly.
The level of competition in this conference is the highest in college basketball and this makes for very close ball games. For the ninth place team in the conference to defeat the top-ranked team at home speaks volumes about the difficulty of the ACC.
So as the season winds down it is highly probable that we will witness more and more close games that come down to the final possession. It is my wish that the referees will let the players decide the fate of the games and not allow a team's season to be ruined because a ref was out of position because he was gawking at cheerleader gyrating in a most appealing manner while the game-winning shot was being hoisted by a player whose foot was clearly on the three-point line.
OK, so it's Demon Deacon ball, out of bounds at half court, five minutes on the clock, with the score after regulation and one overtime knotted at 59. Sounds a lot better doesn't it?